Maxiell, who signed a four-year, $20 million extension right before the 2008-09 season, has a player option for next season where he could become an unrestricted free agent.
If he did so, he'd leave $5 million on the table.
"It's an option," Maxiell said after the Pistons' 116-77 win over the Cavs on Tuesday night. "Right now, I'm trying to finish the season strong, but when the time comes, it comes."
Pistons coach Lawrence Frank said the Pistons' season turned from dreadful to respectable after inserting Maxiell into the starting lineup alongside Greg Monroe.

6 points and 5 boards in 22 mins, hardley played the 2 years prior. What should that be worth? He is ok but not like we had some kind of a stellar front line. I think JJ was just that bad at PF.

I would sign him if the price was right but probably not what his agent will be asking for. maybe 2-3 mil/yr which is far less than the 5 mil owed. Keep in mind that he may be deep on the bench in the coming years.

Maxiell has a short neck. He's only 6'5" w/o shoes mainly because of that. He has long arms and his standing reach is 8'11", which is much more meaningful than his height. He's also a great leaper.

Monroe's height w/o shoes is 6'9.75" (almost 5 inches taller than Maxiell), but his standing reach is 9".5", so only 1.5 inches taller than Maxiell.

Just to take it to an extreme level, if Maxiell had no neck or head, he would only be 5'7", but he would still dunk the same.

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Going for bigs with short necks may be the strategy that changes the NBA like on-base percentage and slugging percentage revolutionized the MLB scouting. Conventional scouting methods probably undervalues players with low values in neck to tip of the head distance. That's some nice Billy Beane stuff from Joe.